Contemporary marketing practices of consumer and business‐to‐business firms: how different are they?

The literature has traditionally argued that marketing in firms serving consumer markets is, and should be, different from that in firms serving business markets. This research investigates the marketing practices of 279 firms in Canada and New Zealand to examine the relevance of the consumer/B2B dichotomy in the context of a contemporary conceptual framework. The results show that while consumer firms are somewhat more transactional in their approach to the market and B2B firms are more relational, overall patterns of marketing practice are similar across firm type. Theoretical, practical, and research implications are discussed.

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